Back to Ameripol you say? No, this is now the space thread!... sort of...
It's not getting a lot of press unless you pay attention to spaceflight circles. But Pence really does seem to be pushing NASA in constructive ways and their new administrator seems to be willing to rustle feathers in congress as far as certain politicians from Alabama are concerned.
This is one of the few good things I've seen come from this administration. Now, I'm willing to bet that their "Launch tests by June 2020" and "On the moon by 2024" are both scheduled precisely due to political reasons. Going back to the moon would be a huge boost for the administration. But I'm worried about it becoming a political thing, as we've already seen over the last couple of decades. Bush pushed for the moon. Obama cancelled it and largely scaled back spaceflight during his admin just putting Mars in the distant future beyond anything he'd have to deal with and let it rest.
While dems are generally supportive of NASA as an organization, I am worried that this will become a "Republicans want to go to the moon. Democrats want to focus on home." Sort of thing. Admittedly we've got our problems to deal with here, but that's never stopped us from doing more than one thing at once, and I fear if NASA's work becomes too associated with Trump it'll all be wiped clean in the next administration.
This is a cycle that's been happening since Apollo, basically. So it shouldn't be surprising. Each new admin either wants to disown a previous admin's pet project, or start up their own new project. Problem being that engineering for spaceflight is slow. Any major project is going to take more than 4 years, and often more than 8 years, from conception to implementation. The ISS was originally being designed immediately after the space shuttle plans were finalized. in the early 80s. Manufacturing started in the 90s. Launches started in 1998. It wasn't "completed" until 2011.
Apollo's full program was never fully realized due to politicians and ended right when it was getting exciting. (The Saturn V was ridiculously overbuilt and could have gotten us to Mars with the right planning and funding.) The space shuttle used the SRBs and that big orange external tank, which were originally designed as a stopgap to get the thing flying until they could get something better, for it's entire lifespan. Constellation, which was approved under W. Bush, got cancelled under Obama and we were left with a "new" design Orion and SLS instead, one of the most horrid examples of wasteful pork barrel spending I've ever seen... and really just Constellation scaled back and renamed and asked to do even more... and now scaled back again and put back on its original mission with a smaller budget and less preparedness.
It's a mess... and Washington as a whole are responsible. But the pattern here seems to be that Republicans make big overambitious plans. Democrats cancel them once they're half done. And neither side really wants to fund it appropriately anyway... except to the point where their favorite aerospace companies continue getting paid to do crap that'll probably be thrown out in another couple of elections for "The next big plan".
It's not enough to change my vote this election... but this is a big personal issue for me. We need to, as a species, get back out there. I'm hoping the whole argument will be a moot point once commercial spaceflight jumps ahead and starts selling tickets anyone can buy. But it's damned frustrating to watch something like this turned into a political tool, while at the same time it's use as a political tool is the only reason it's being given as much support as it is.
TL;DR: God damn it Pence, why do you have to like space too? We can't BOTH like it!
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Topic: AmeriPol thread (Read 4468043 times)